The Golden Days of Travel to France
1958 was a big year for the Jones family, it saw the arrival of our first television set and my father also bought his first car, a Hillman Hunter in burgundy red.
That summer we all flew en famille across the channel from Lydd Airport in Kent to Le Touquet on the Opal Coast, northern France. We were accompanied by the car in a Bristol Super freighter of Silver City Airways. We drove on to La Loupe near Chartres where as an obnoxious 11 year old, I had a really boring holiday and spent the whole two weeks fishing for frogs in a local lake.
A very kind La Loupian told me the best bait for frogs was red wool, it worked brilliantly and the local restaurant soon had “Grenouille de la jeune homme Anglais” as a specialty on its menu.
In the 1970s I was involved in the Round Table which was a huge raiser of monies for charity and a sponsored cycle ride from Oxford to Paris was the major event one year. However the rules dictated that it was to be nonstop which gave us a challenge when we reached the coast. Our ferry crossing was an early morning one and the ferry company left one of the car decks completely clear so we rode our bikes round and round on deck until we reached Calais (I doubt health and safety rules would allow that these days).
One of the traditions of Round Table was themed “scatter nights”. This involved member’s names being drawn out of a hat with two other members.
The three man team had 24 hours to get as far away from their home town and
return within 24 hours - but in order to comply with rules, another Round Table meeting had to be attended during that period. Research showed the Table Ronde (83) Calais of the Table Ronde Francaise met at lunchtime that day. So, together with a printer called Stan Wyatt and
Geoff Wells the manager of Barclays Bank in my home town of Banbury in Oxford, we hot footed it to Dover arriving at dawn. Our luck was in big time as a national hot air balloon rally was taking place above the docks at Dover Castle. We hitched a lift and arrived after a very peaceful hop across the channel.
Our French friends gave us a tremendous and very boozy lunch in the yacht club, and after an exchange of banners and gifts we managed to return within the time frame allowed.
Peter Jones reminisces...